stargazing on an unusually clear night
by orvaign
Summary: It's the end of 2013, the world is ending, and they've just got Camp Chautauqua running in some semblance of order. Destiel - Dean/Castiel


**Written for a prompt on my fanfiction tumblr.**

"Do you miss it?"

There's silence for a moment, then Cas answers, "Sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

"When I'm lucid."

"Ah."

More silence.

Dean has his head tilted upwards; the bright light of the moon casting shadows over his skin, and Castiel doesn't feel ashamed of staring. He figures it's the least Dean can give him, after all the fallen angel has done for him – appreciating beauty is one of the only things he has left, and even then only rarely, because there is so little of it left. Cas searches for reasons to carry on, for beauty, in bottles, in the camp's medicine supply, in the worn-out bodies of the women and men living around them and sometimes he finds it, but it's rare. Dean is a near constant source of beauty, as harsh as he has become.

It's the end of 2013, the world is ending, and they've just got Camp Chautauqua running in some semblance of order.

Chuck had taken over inventory shortly after Castiel fell, years ago – when he became too unstable to be trusted handling the things that would keep a whole camp of people alive. Cas hadn't cared, had found his hut where he could drink his alcohol and take his drugs and host his orgies and just generally ignore everything that was going on. Except when Dean asks things of him. Then he listens.

But the asking had already been done for tonight – Dean had come into his hut with eyes that were as questioning as they were self-loathing, and Cas had taken him in and gently taken him apart, only to put him back together again with kisses and thrusts and quiet, quiet words that went some way to bridge the gap between them, but not all the way. That would be impossible, after everything. Now they sit on the porch of Castiel's hut, shoulder to shoulder, looking up at the unusually clear sky and Castiel has a joint between his lips and Dean has starlight casting shadows over the harsh lines of his face, and Castiel thinks of how far they've both fallen.

"Do you ever regret following me?" Dean asks. He knows the answer, but Castiel knows he needs to hear it sometimes.

"Never."

Dean nods, once, and Cas turns his head to look up at the stars.

They're beautiful, he supposes. They cast light on thousands upon thousands of other worlds, other planets, give life to things humans can't comprehend. It's not so much what they look like as what they mean, and they mean that there are bigger things in the universe than the fate of Earth, but it's difficult to care that much when you're living on it during the End of Days as so much less than you once were. To distract himself, Castiel nudges Dean in the shoulder and points up at a star, in a lonely patch of sky to their west.

"That one's dead," he tells Dean. "I watched it, its entire life. Billions and billions of years, I watched it. It was huge – many, many times bigger than your sun. I was there when it was made, I was there as it burned and fostered life on the planet around it, and I was there as it burnt itself out and went supernova. I felt its heat on my wings and I heard the souls of the things it killed sing as they were pulled up to the Heaven of the gods they worshipped. I was there for the moment the first being pulled itself out of the roiling lava that covers most of the planet, the way water covers Earth. I watched their evolution, their growth, their civilisation. I was there, primarily, for those beings."

Dean's eyes are fixed on the bright pinprick of light in the sky, his mouth slightly open as he shuffles slightly closer to his companion, but Cas continues. "My brother came to me, and he asked, _'Castiel, why did you sit here for so long to watch this? This planet is not ours. What knowledge have you gained?'_ And I looked at him – and I was so young, so innocent – and I told him, _'Our Father has taught us to love all of His creations. I wanted to see if I could love beings He did not make.'_"

Castiel is no longer looking at the dead star. He is watching Dean watch the sky. "And my brother asked me if I could, and I said, _'Yes. I loved them, and it pained me to watch them suffer.'_ I was punished for that," he says, voice quiet. "But it was worth it."

"It was?" Dean asks, and his voice is so awed, so innocent-sounding that Castiel has to swallow a smile as Dean turns to look at him. "It was worth it?"

"Yes," Castiel says. "The love I felt for those beings far outweighed the severity of the punishment, and it made it worth everything. I suppose it was sort of a prophecy, of what I was to do in the future. I love things I should not, Dean, and I suffer for that love, but it's always, always worth it."

There's pain in Dean's eyes, now, and they mingle with the quiet acceptance in Castiel's own alcohol-dulled eyes and there's nothing he can do but reach out and take the joint from Castiel's fingers and throw it to the ground, twining their fingers together, because he can't articulate what he feels. They sit like that for a long time, hands twisted and staring into each other's eyes, and it's enough until the sun wipes the evidence of the stars from the sky and Dean has to get up.

He receives a tip-off about the location of the Colt that day, and he sets off that evening. It turns out to be a false alarm and they lose five people and as this pattern continues, Dean becomes colder and colder and Castiel sinks further and further into oblivion, clinging to the hope that all this will be worth it in the end.


End file.
